Green Pilot Tours

The tour
In January 2023, Belgian artist and bass player Lara Rosseel and her Quintet embarked on a 10-day concert tour travelling from Belgium to south-west Sweden. 

Belgian agency Inside Jazz worked with touring networks JazzLab (Belgium) and Knutpunkt (Sweden) to create the tour, which was supported by EJN’s Green Pilot Tour initiative. The tour name was 'BRYGGA - Bridge from the Low Lands to the High North'.

With Lara was Sam Vloemans on trumpet, Vitja Pauwels on guitar, and Sep Francois and Angelo Moustapha on percussion, vibes and marimba, with sound technician Leander Meuris. 

They travelled together in a rented tour van with a whole bunch of instruments for a workshop in Svalöv for the jazz students of the Fridhem Folkhögskola, followed by six consecutive days of concerts in jazz clubs in Halmstad, Lidköping, Vänersborg, Lerum, Partille and Helsingborg.

Marijn from JazzLab says:

“The tour went perfectly and according to plan. Our Swedish partner Knutpunkt ensured that the concerts were very well received by the local communities, and the individual organisers were ‘over the moon’. The concert locations varied often, from clubs to unhallowed churches and libraries, to grand concert halls. It was very nice to get a feeling of the local music-experience.” 

The concert at Partille also received a very positive review in the Swedish music press: 
https://orkesterjournalen.com/scen/kontrastrikt-med-belgiska-lara-rosseel-quintet-i-partille/

A Facebook video interview with Lara and Maria Rylander of Knutpunkt, was shared by the different touring partners, JazzLab, Knutpunkt and Inside Jazz. In the interview green touring and the Green Pilot Tour were also discussed. You can see the video here: https://fb.watch/iFNDbBBFfG/

Highlights
“Travelling by car with the whole band, meant the community feeling of the group was very strong, a feeling of "we are doing this wonderful journey together". Because we had our own means of transportation and places to keep things and be together, the feeling of home was also transported with us on tour. If the band had rented a van in a comparable size, but with accommodation for sleeping this feeling of home and togetherness would be even stronger. Then the band wouldn't need to sleep in ho(s)tels every night.”

Challenges
“A major challenge on the tour were the long drives by the musicians themselves, only to arrive and get into full concert modus immediately. This was not always the best state of being to play a concert in full concentration. Another major challenge was the transportation of the vibraphone. Because the venues were sometimes quite small this couldn't be provided most of the time, so it had to come along on the tour. This took some space and wasn't always practical. But these challenges and touring lessons were minor issues in the overall project and experience, which went very well and smoothly.” 

Has it changed your thinking?
To make the journey ourselves by car, and not to depend on airplanes or other overtly polluting means of transportation, is a way of travelling to be replicated in future tours for sure.

It depends very much on your destination, where you know you can start meaningful collaborations with local productional partners and/or venues and where you can find a musical connection with local audiences. We were very lucky to be able to tour in Sweden, which is a beautiful country with nice venues and audiences, but also achievable to tour by car.

Other sustainability elements

• We asked to have vegetarian meals, preferably with local, seasonal produce, for the whole tour. 
• We had clearly labelled recycling facilities backstage and in dressing rooms for paper, cans, plastic and glass.
• We booked hotels or accommodation with environmental credentials
• We organised a tour that has an efficient straight route, with no ping-pong concerts going back and forth in the region.
• Most of our marketing was digital rather than print and any print was on recycled or FSC-certified paper, 
• We shared information about our green tour with audiences ahead of the concert

The details

• 15/01/2023 Departure from BE - Belgium to Neumünster
• 16/01/2023 Travel day to Svalöv - Neumünster to Svalöv
• 17/01/2023 Masterclass in Svalöv & Concert in Halmstad
• 18/01/2023 Concert in Lidköping
• 19/01/2023 Concert in Vänersborg
• 20/01/2023 Concert in Lerum
• 21/01/2023 Concert in Partille
• 22/01/2023 Concert in Helsingborg
• 23/01/2023 Travel day - Helsingborg to Hamburg
• 24/01/2023 Arrival home - Hamburg to Belgium